1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to surgical devices and/or systems, surgical adapters and their methods of use. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to hand held powered surgical devices, surgical adapters and/or adapter assemblies for use between and for interconnecting the powered, rotating and/or articulating surgical device or handle assembly and a loading unit for clamping, cutting and/or stapling tissue.
2. Background of Related Art
Anastomosis is the surgical joining of separate hollow organ sections. Typically, an anastomosis procedure follows surgery in which a diseased or defective section of hollow tissue is removed and the remaining end sections are to be joined. Depending on the desired anastomosis procedure, the end sections may be joined by either circular, end-to-end or side-to-side organ reconstruction methods.
In a circular anastomosis procedure, the two ends of the organ sections are joined by means of a stapling instrument which drives a circular array of staples through the end section of each organ section and simultaneously cores any tissue interior of the driven circular array of staples to free the tubular passage. Typically, these instruments include an elongated shaft having a handle portion at a proximal end to actuate the instrument and a staple holding component disposed at a distal end. An anvil assembly including an anvil rod with attached anvil head is mounted to the distal end of the instrument adjacent the staple holding component. Opposed end portions of tissue of the hollow organ(s) to be stapled are clamped between the anvil head and the staple holding component. The clamped tissue is stapled by driving one or more staples from the staple holding component so that the ends of the staples pass through the tissue and are deformed by the anvil head. An annular knife is advanced to core tissue with the hollow organ to free a tubular passage within the organ.
Another type of surgical device is a linear clamping, cutting and stapling device. Such a device may be employed in a surgical procedure to resect a cancerous or anomalous tissue from a gastro-intestinal tract. Conventional linear clamping, cutting and stapling instruments include a pistol grip-styled structure having an elongated shaft and distal portion. The distal portion includes a pair of scissors-styled gripping elements, which clamp the open ends of the colon closed. In this device, one of the two scissors-styled gripping elements, such as the anvil portion, moves or pivots relative to the overall structure, whereas the other gripping element remains fixed relative to the overall structure. The actuation of this scissoring device (the pivoting of the anvil portion) is controlled by a grip trigger maintained in the handle.
In addition to the scissoring device, the distal portion also includes a stapling mechanism. The fixed gripping element of the scissoring mechanism includes a staple cartridge receiving region and a mechanism for driving the staples up through the clamped end of the tissue against the anvil portion, thereby sealing the previously opened end. The scissoring elements may be integrally formed with the shaft or may be detachable such that various scissoring and stapling elements may be interchangeable.
A number of surgical device manufacturers have developed product lines with proprietary drive systems for operating and/or manipulating the surgical device. In many instances the surgical devices include a handle assembly, which is reusable, and a disposable loading unit or the like that is selectively connected to the handle assembly prior to use and then disconnected from the loading unit following use in order to be disposed of or in some instances sterilized for re-use.
Many of the existing loading units for use with many of the existing surgical devices and/or handle assemblies are driven by a linear force. For examples, loading units for performing endo-gastrointestinal anastomosis procedures, end-to-end anastomosis procedures and transverse anastomosis procedures, each typically require a linear driving force in order to be operated. As such, these loading units are not compatible with surgical devices and/or handle assemblies that use a rotary motion to deliver power or the like.
In order to make the linear driven loading units compatible with surgical devices and/or handle assemblies that use a rotary motion to deliver power, a need exists for adapters and/or adapter assemblies to interface between and interconnect the linear driven loading units with the rotary driven surgical devices and/or handle assemblies.